Former Sen. George McGovern has rescheduled
his visit. He will be at The BookMark on Friday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. to
talk about and sign copies of his book "What It Means to
Be a Democrat." He originally planned on being here in December
but had to cancel his tour for health reasons.

Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon
routed McGovern in a presidential election that forever changed
American politics and cemented the powerful differences between the
Republican and Democratic parties. Today, as the chasm between left and
right has widened in Washington, McGovern passionately argues for a
return to Democratic core values.

In this new book, the former South Dakota
senator laments that the GOP and increasingly centrist Democratic
politicians have forgotten their commitment to compassionate policies
that meet the needs of the many, not of the few.

The Book Mark is located at 220 First St.,
Neptune Beach, FL 32266. For more information, call 904.241.9026
or send an e-mail to owner Rona Brinlee at bkmark@bellsouth.net.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Amelia
Island Book Festival

Slated
for Feb. 17-18

When
Fernandina Beach hosts the 11th annual Amelia Island Book
Festival
Feb.
17-18, many events will be free and some may require
modestly priced tickets.
General tickets are already on sale at www.ameliaislandbookfestival.com.

As
a pre-festival event, Tom Kimmel, a singer, songwriter, and poet, will
be featured at 8 p.m. Feb. 3 in Burns Hall of St. Peter’s Episcopal
Church.
The
event is free, but donations of $15 will be suggested.

An entire day of Writers’ Workshops will be
from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at the

Betty
Cook Nassau Campus of Florida State College at Jacksonville. These
workshops are designed for
novice and experienced writers to learn from outstanding writers and
writing instructors in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Featured will
be David Morrell, creator of Rambo and author of over 35 books,
including “Creepers”
and “The
Successful Novelist.” The workshops will cost $65.

The Festival Gala, "Once upon a Book Island,"
will take place that evening from 6 to 9:30 at
Amelia
Island Plantation. The cost is $75 for an individual or $700 for a
table of 10.

Attendees will be able to enjoy dinner by
Horizons and island sounds of Pili Pili in a beautiful setting with
festival authors and lovers of books. Steve Berry is featured along
with David Morrell.

An
author's luncheon (fee of $40) will be held at noon on Saturday, Feb.
18, at the
Atlantic
Recreation Center, with the keynote speaker being
Paula McLain, author of the New York Times bestselling
novel, “The
Paris Wife.”
The book
was recently named the best historical fiction book of 2011 by
Goodreads.

The
festival will also offer such free events as Authors in Schools, The
Kidz Zone, and The Readers Festival.

*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

NFW to Critique Manuscripts

at Feb. 11 Meeting

at Wesconnett Library

The North Florida Writers meeting will
feature critiques of manuscripts at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Feb. 11
meeting. Don’t set your brain on auto-pilot and head straight to the
regular site because the group will switch back to the Webb Wesconnett
Library due to a scheduling conflict at the Willowbranch library.

Meetings at Willowbranch will resume in
March. The public is welcome to attend all meetings.

The critique process has someone other than
the author of respective works read aloud the submissions (up to 10
double-spaced pages of prose, and reasonable amounts of poetry or
lyrics). Authors may not defend their work, but they may attach
questions they would like answered (e.g., “Is the scene on the beach
convincing?”). Authors should listen to the words and rhythms of their
creations.

The Webb Wesconnett Library is located at the
corner of 103rd Street and Harlow Boulevard and is easily
accessed via nearby I-295 or Blanding Boulevard/US 17.

The Luddite in
my soul makes me shout “Hear hear!” whenever I read complaints about
e-books and e-readers. I hate this Kindle craze. I want to turn a page,
not waft a finger or whatever alien thing it is you do to get to the
next page. I remember decades ago the first time when I used a
microfiche at the New York City Library, my hand kept reaching out to
turn the damn page. It did not want to reach to the side to twiddle a
knob and "scroll" to the next "frame."

The only
advantage to e-books, it seems to me, would be on holiday. Rather than
weighing yourself down with a load of actual books, you can just have
them all in your Kindle, which somehow magically grabs novels out of
the stratosphere ... or so I'm told.

When I read, I
flip back and forth to doublecheck characters’ names, facts, or even
figures of speech. But I bet it's not easy to figure out on page 362
who some character is you've forgotten about when he first appeared on
page 22. Perhaps terrorists in the tale have captured him and carried
him off to the jungle, and maybe you set the book down to tend to
life’s busyness. When you pick up the book a day or week later, you
want to check him out again. With a book, you just flip the pages, but
what do you do with a Kindle?

I'm a consummate
library borrower, not a book buyer, so there's the added disadvantage
to actual books of ending up overdue.Then again, I wonder, does a Kindle book have a due-date like a
library book anyway? I shall never find out!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Prize-winning

Workshops
on river

to
start Feb. 22

A writing workshop on
a shanty boat docked on the Trout River is beginning a new series of
classes Feb. 22 to March 28, according to freelance writer and editor
of Closet Books, Lynn Skapyak Harlin, leader of the workshop.

Shanty boat
Writers Workshop is designed for
beginning writers who would like to learn new techniques,
or seasoned writers who would like to refresh these
skills to improve their writing.
Fiction and
nonfiction writers are welcome. Topics include Creating
believable characters, Tips for Improving Dialogue, Elements of Plot,
How 'Show rather than Tell' works toward clarity in all forms of
writing and many other craft techniques and submission tips.

Members of recent classes have won awards in the contests of the
Florida First Coast Writers' Festival and other national awards.

The evening
session meets every
Wednesday from 6 to 9, and the cost of the workshop (limited to
10 students) is
$125 for six weeks.

Before
attending a workshop
all new workshop writers
must write and submit an introductory essay according to workshop
guidelines.

Do you have a story that can rival “The Pit and the
Pendulum”? A poem that may challenge “The Road Not Taken”? Or even a
chapter that might hold its own against “To Kill a Mockingbird”? (Or
even just works that you think are good, if not immortal yet?)

If so, you need to know that CDS Publicity is collecting short stories, poetry, and novel chapters from
all age area authors, writers, poets for inclusion in “Open Mic
Jacksonville, Volume II/Short Stories/Poetry.”

Proceeds from this book will be donated to the Optimist
Literary Group, which helps tutor children and adults in Duval County. “Open
Mic Jacksonville Volume I” was published and became a
best-selling poetry book of area poets, won several national awards,
and is archived in the Cummer Museum of Jacksonville as part of
Jacksonville’s history.

Caryn Day-Suarez, director of the first project, will be
selecting the entries for Volume II of Open Mic Jacksonville. All
entries need to be typed, preferably e-mailed to
Caryn@CDSPublicity.com. All entrants must include their name, address and phone
number. A short bio should also be included. Those selected will be
notified before publication. The book will also be available online as
an e-book for purchase to be released in time for the holidays 2012.
For more information, check out the website at
http://CDSPublicity.com or call 904.428.4681.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE

WRONG

STUFF – FORENSIC GRAMMAR

By HOWARD DENSON

Huma Kahn, “The Note: Is South Carolina the
Last Gasp for Tea Party in GOP Nomination?”:

Many in the
grassroots movement vehemently oppose the former Massachusetts
governor, who they deem to be no different than President Obama,
politically and ideologically.

--and—

“Worst-case scenario,
we find a candidate whose a third-party candidate. That means Obama
would get a second term. We realize that but Romney is little better
than Obama,” [Tea Party founder Judson] Phillips said.

W.S. SAYS:In the first excerpt, it’s “differ from” or “different from”
instead of “than.” Cecil Adams in his “Straight Dope” column has
reviewed suggestions in books by Theodore Bernstein and Bergen Evans
about such problems and concludes, “When
different is followed by a prepositional phrase, the preposition
should be
from. When it's followed by a dependent clause introduced by a
conjunction (even if much of the clause is elliptical), the conjunction
should be
than.”

The sentence also offers an interesting
problem with “governor, who they deem” for those who worry about the
correct usage of “who” and “whom.” If the sentence had read “governor,
who they say is no different,” then “who” would be required; the “they
say” is parenthetical and can be omitted. However, “they deem” is not
parenthetical since the infinitive “to be” continues the action or
condition of the verb; therefore, “whom” is the object of the verb in
the clause. Nonetheless, only a grammarian will spot the problem, so
the writer can get away with the informal “who.”

A Jordanian citizen of Palestinian
extraction, [Feras] al-Banna was arrested for larceny, which eventually
lead to a warrant issued for searching his premises.

W.S. SAYS: You can lead a horse to water, you
can make a sinker out of lead, but you use “led” for the past tense of
“lead.”

**

C. Lazarus, “Savings Experiment: Diapers”
(AOL Daily Finance):

If you decide to go with a designer label,
she also suggests Luvs. Luvs are owned by Proctor & Gamble (PG),
the parent company of Pampers, but are about five cents cheaper than
Pampers or Huggies.

W.S. SAYS: Spell-checkers often won’t help
with the names of companies and corporations. You often have to rely on
the phone book or an e-search to locate a company’s name: Procter &
Gamble. Oh, and it’s J.C. Penney, not Penny. What’s the status on the
hyphens in K-Mart and Wal-Mart? Check the phone book or company
websites on the internet.

**

Amber Ramanauskas and Bill Quigley, “Haiti:
Seven Places Where the Earthquake Money Did and Did Not Go”
(NationofChange.com):

Over half a million people remain homeless in
hundreds of informal camps, most of the tons of debris from destroyed
buildings still lays where it fell, and cholera, a preventable disease,
was introduced into the country and is now an epidemic killing
thousands and sickening hundreds of thousands more.

W.S. SAYS:The sentence wants present tense, so “most lies” is correct, not
the chickenly “most lays”; if it had been past tense, the verb would
have been “most lay.”

His feelings for the Molesworth series were
much sunnier, and in his notes he would happily lapse into Geoffrey
Willans’s schoolboy-speak. Enjoying the text as he did, ect ect, he
didn’t attempt to compete with it,so the much-loved illustrations are among his simplest and most
anecdotal.

W.S. SAYS: The writer is possibly being
whimsical by using “schoolboy-speak” (or writing) when he says “ect
ect.” Surely a schoolboy didn’t mean to refer to electroconvulsive
therapy, but got confused on the use of the abbreviation for “et
cetera”: etc. etc.

The other candidates are likely to avoid
clashing with Perry, but there is enough friction between he and Romney
(and he and Paul) that they may tangle.

W.S. SAYS:“Between” is a preposition, so the sentence requires the
personal pronoun to be in the objective case: “between him and Romney
(and him and Paul).” Since that is conjuring up an awkward sentence,
revise it so that “he and Romney,” etc. can be used in the nominative
case: “… but he may tangle with Romney (or Paul) before the night’s
debate is over.”

Ireland’s decisions to join the European
Monetary System in 1979 without Britain; to support the opening of
negotiations on the single European market in 1984 despite British
opposition; and above all to join the euro by accepting the Maastricht
treaty on economic and monetary union in 1992, notwithstanding British
non-participation, confirmed the long-term political strategy of
reducing this overdependence.

W.S. SAYS: This sentence is so 17th
or 18th century. First, it goes on for 59 words. It gives us
the subject (“decisions”) and gases on for 48 words (count them!)
before it gets to the verb (“confirmed”). Revise it by putting the
parts together that belong together . . . and stick the complicated
stuff at the end of the sentence.

**

John Man, “Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped
the Western World” (Wiley):

Why, for instance, did
sh, a sound that the Phoenicians had but Greeks didn’t, became ks?

--and--

In the first century BC, the emperor
Claudius, whose first wife was part-Etruscan, wrote a twenty-volume
history of her people, but it vanished by mischance or suppression.

W.S. SAYS:
In the first instance, we can blame, say, the
ringing of a telephone after Man had written “but the Greeks didn’t.”
Then he resumed writing, but in the past tense, forgetting the “did”
helper requires a present tense in the verb. In the second problem, the
first Roman emperor was Caesar Augustus, who died in 14 A.D. He was
succeeded by Tiberius, then the nut-job Caligula, who was succeeded by
Derek Jacobi (“I Claudius”). He and
Plautia Urgulanilla were married
easily in the AD period. (In case you haven’t noticed, “Common Era” or
“CE” has replaced “A.D.,” with “BCE” being reserved for “before” the
common era.)

**

Headline for an Associated Press story
(Florida Times-Union):

Paterno could be last of ilk

W.S. SAYS: This Scottish variation on the
word “alike” originally helped to denote the home-town of individuals,
as in “The government appointed Angus Aberdeen of that ilk” instead of
saying “Angus Aberdeen of Aberdeen.” As time went on, that geographical
emphasis dropped out of use. Now the expression has a negative usage as
it equates an individual to some unsavory group. Dems and GOPers err
when they refer to “Romney and his ilk” or “Biden and his ilk”; their
remarks often don’t identify anything negative other than someone’s
membership in an opposing party. On the other hand, if you are
referring to “John Wayne Gacy and his ilk” or “Bernie Madoff and his
ilk,” the reader expects you will justify the “ilk” with pertinent
examples.

Headline on Craig Shirley column in Politico:

Gingrich: The rise of the hoi polloi

W.S. SAYS: In Greek, “hoi” means “the,” so
the head is saying “the rise of the the people.” You also don’t refer
to “Mount Fugiyama,” since “yama” means “mountain.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

STUFF

FROM HITHER

AND YON

What Could Have Entered

Public Domain on Jan. 1, 2012?

Duke University’s Center for the Study of the
Public Domain notes that, under old copyright laws, several books and
movies would have been available for others to use or reprint,
including The End of Eternity,
The Body Snatchers, Why Johnny Can’t Read: And What You Can
Do About It,
Rebel Without a Cause, Lady and the Tramp, To Catch
A Thief, Picasso’s
Don Quixote, Tutti Frutti, and more. http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2012/pre-1976

You Can’t Always

Get What You Want:

On Stephen King

Charles Taylor, a writer living in Brooklyn,
discusses Stephen King’s
11/22/63 and explores what would have happened if a time
traveler had managed to kill Lee Harvey Oswald BEFORE he killed JFK.

On the This Recording
website, you can find students at the University of Virginia asking
questions of William Faulkner, including the venerable “how do you find
time to write?” Faulkner said, “You can always find time to
write. Anybody who says he can't is living under false pretenses. To
that extent depend on inspiration. Don't wait. When you have an
inspiration put it down. Don't wait until later and when you have more
time and then try to recapture the mood and add flourishes. You can
never recapture the mood with the vividness of its first impression.”
http://thisrecording.com/today/2010/9/9/in-which-the-basic-reason-was-william-faulkner-needed-money.html

Another writer who made millions

By self-publishing online

A month or so ago, we mentioned a writer who
had struck it rich online. Now there’s another anecdote: Amanda
Hocking, a paranormal fiction writer, was striking out left and right,
but she wanted to make just $300 to go to Chicago to see an exhibit
about the Muppets’ Jim Henson. So she offered one of her rejected
novels online at Amazon.Com. She got her travel money . . . and a
million dollars more.

At his website, “Terrible Minds,” Chuck
Wendig (novelist, screenwriter, etc.) has a long discussion involving
the do’s and don’ts of dealing with agents. Step #1, he says, is to do
some research and don’t send, say, a romance novel to a guy who only
handles textbooks.

THE CDS PUBLICITY FREE WRITERS
CRITIQUE GROUP:
Meets twice monthly. The
first Tuesday of each month at the Mandarin Library on Kori Road from 6
to 8:30 p.m., and the third Saturday of the month at the
Webb-Wesconnett Library at 103rd and Harlow from 2 until 4 p.m.
Everyone is welcome. For more information see our website at http://CDSPublicity.com or call 904.343.4188.

FIRST COAST CHRISTIAN WRITERS GROUP: Every Thursday, 6:45 p.m. at Charles
Webb-Wesconnett Library at the intersection of 103rd Street
and Harlow Boulevard. Email: Dalyn_2@yahoo.com or
Tlsl72@yahoo.com,